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Thursday, 21 February 2013

It has been waaaay too long since I blogged... sorry for the silence. There has been a lot going on in my life, but this quest is always on my mind.So I have had two counselling sessions since my last blog, and a doctors visit with more blood test results.I went to my second last counselling appointment in a lot of distress. I had realized that I had this impulsive part of me that I had absolutely NO control of. The sane part of me wants all my dreams to come true, travelling, health, career. But this impulsive part couldn't care less. So when it comes time for a binge I can rationalize all I want, but the impulsive part says hells no, we are doing what I want to do, no matter what. (It was the "no matter what" that scared me the most. I was trying to control it, and instead ended up lying to Chuck, I felt like I was falling back into my teenage life, too much control = Reina will lie to break free of it). What I learned was that instead of trying to control and restrict this impulsive part of me, I am supposed to work with it. I found this very confusing until last session when she explained it. I should say, yes I hear you, but I am choosing not to act on this impulse. And if I feel anxiety that is ok, acknowledge the anxiety the same way and don't dive into it. She gave me an analogy that I really enjoyed. There are three boxes we live in throughout our lives, one is the positive box, one is the neutral box and one is the negative box. And we spend a lot of time in the neutral box. And thats ok. We shouldn't feel constant pleasure, that is just not life, same goes for the negative feelings. But we do everything we can, eat, watch tv, watch movies and in extreme cases drink or do drugs to get out of that neutral box. If we can accept that life is mostly in that neutral box and quit fighting that, we will find that inner peace. That really resonated with me.The other thing we talked about was that I need to "sit with" my emotions and my impulses. I didn't understand what that was, but she said you need to sit with it and not give it that story, breathe through it, feel the emotion, but not feed it with all the whys you are feeling that way. I tried, but I didn't feel a difference until my uncle died. See, when I am sad, I run away from it. I will eat, watch a movie, distract myself. And out of respect for my uncle and I guess even for myself I thought I should allow myself to feel the sadness, but not feed it. So I did. And it felt cleaner, more pure and way less overwhelming. Then on Tuesday I was listening to an audio book by the Dalai Lama called "How to See Yourself as You Really Are." Because I began to realize a lot of who I am and how I know myself is through my defence mechanisms, if anyone wanted me to tell them all about myself, I would be at a loss for words. So I was listening to this. Then I decided to take a break and was about to order pizza and then this part of me went "NO!" and this was my breakthrough. The part of me that wants the dreams is stronger than the impulsive part. I am in control of myself! I know this seems small, but after months and months, if not years of giving into the impulses because I was afraid of having another panic attack, finally having the strength to overcome that impulsive part of me was like a breath of fresh air!At the doctors he checked my blood pressure and it is still high but not too high to work out so yay... :p lol not much enthusiasm... but he also told me quite flippantly that I have an autoimmune disease that I can do NOTHING about that is attacking my thyroid and eventually it will go kaput and I will have to go on medication. He told me this only because I remembered to ask about the further tests on my thyroid, and he didn't even tell me the name of the autoimmune disease. I kind of accepted that because I believed that there was nothing I could do. And when I had friends and family say "oh with a healthy diet you will be fine" I got pretty pissed because I felt completely helpless about it. But then I saw my counsellor yesterday and after I told her this she got pretty mad :p lol and she said that there IS something I can do, the doctors were saying the same thing about her son (he has a different medical issue with an autoimmune disease). She took the time after the session to email me this article, because due to my symptoms this is what she thinks I may have (my doctor is on vacation so I won't be able to confirm for a couple more weeks). But the symptoms do fit. I am sensitive to lactose.I am sensitive to gluten.My thyroid levels fluctuate.I have had hair loss (thank science I have A LOT of hair :p lol)I am tired all of the timeMy heart beats too fast at times.My muscles ache and are tender to the touch. It is time for me to realize that the way I am living is TORTURE, and although I LOVE pizza and cheesies and pop and chocolate, I love my life, my health, my dreams, my family and my career more. So I am going to research into the Paleo diet. I am hoping that with clean eating I will have more energy and less pain so that I can become active again, so that I can work more efficiently (photography, especially of newborns, is its own kind of yoga :p lol) and so that I can dance again. I remember people saying that what they loved most about my dancing was the look on my face when I did it. Dance, yoga, meditation and photography is where I will find my inner peace. And it all starts with clean eating.